a French ghost from Syria indicted for crimes against humanity

Sonia M., 34, is the ex-wife of a senior Daesh officer, returning from Syria, in detention in France for four years. She is suspected of having reduced a 16-year-old Yazidi girl into slavery in the apartment where she lived with her husband in Raqqa, Syria.

This is a historic first since the Second World War: a French citizen – in this case a female citizen – will undoubtedly soon be tried in Paris for crimes against humanity and genocide, the most serious qualifications in our penal code.

Sonia M., originally from Grenoble, was married under Daesh to Abdelnasser Benyoucef, an Algerian jihadist who grew up in France, who was a high-ranking member of the Islamic State. He was its first head of external operations and, as such, was the superior, in particular, of Abdelhamid Abaoud before the latter carried out the attacks of November 13, 2015 in Paris. Abdelnasser Benyoucef is considered one of the sponsors of the Hyper Cacher attack and the failed Villejuif attack. He is believed to have died in March 2016 during Islamic State fighting against the Syrian army.

Sonia M. lived in an apartment in Raqqa and was even expecting a child from her husband in the spring of 2015, when Benyoucef “purchased” a 16-year-old Yazidi slave. Initially, Sonia M. was prosecuted for complicity in crimes against humanity, but she was indicted last March, as the main perpetrator, for crimes against humanity.

The investigation is now closed and the national anti-terrorism prosecution in Paris must deliver its final indictment this week. Sonia M. intends to use all the remedies available to her. If they are unsuccessful, the thirty-year-old could be judged at the end of 2024 or early 2025. French magistrates went to Iraqi Kurdistan last February to collect the testimony of the young Yezidi woman who we will call Roza (not her real name). She is now 25 years old and lives in a refugee camp near Erbil.

During her hearing, Roza explained that she was captured, kidnapped with her two sisters and many other young Yazidi women on August 3, 2014, when the Islamic State group launched a coordinated attack in its Sinjar region in the north of the country. Iraq, territory of the Yazidi, Kurdophone, non-Muslim religious minority. At least 3,000 Yazidis died during this assault described by the United Nations as genocide.

Locked up for more than a month

Roza remembers being loaded into a truck by a slave trader who sold her in Raqqa to Abdelnasser Benyoucef in the spring of 2015, then she says she remained locked up for a month and ten days in his marital home. , where Sonia M. was, pregnant. The young Yezidi recounts a daily life of abuse, says she was raped almost every day by the jihadist and explains that her wife could not ignore it, the apartment being only a two-room apartment.

A domestic slave in this accommodation, Roza describes an ordeal, forced to do all the required tasks, forced to ask permission to drink, eat, shower. She confides that she was mistreated, including by Sonia M., hit at least twice with a shoe. The young Yezidi describes her torturer’s wife as dominant, carrying a gun, and not as a submissive woman who would also have been a victim of this man.

Sonia M. says she is devastated, broken by these accusations. Incarcerated in the Rhône-Alpes region since January 2020, this thirty-year-old firmly denies having been violent with the young Yezidi. She explains that she was presented with a fait accompli when her husband took her to look for this young slave whom he had described to her as “a gift from God that cannot be refused”. Sonia M. says she was always kind to Roza, letting her move freely around the apartment when her husband was away. In essence, the ghost explains that Roza was her husband’s slave, not hers, and that it was at her request that he ended up separating from her. Roza had then been “resold” to a Belgian jihadist. An investigation was also opened by Belgian justice.

Facts that she mentioned about herself

Sonia M. even explains that the French justice system would not have been able to prosecute her for these acts of slavery if she had not herself mentioned, on her own initiative during the personality investigation carried out by the judges, this young Yazidi living in 2015 for more than a month with her and her husband.

Sonia M. says she confided in these facts precisely because she considers herself repentant, in the process of rehabilitation, having completely turned her back on all radicalization. She regrets that justice is trying to make her bear responsibility for the facts instead of the real perpetrators.

Sonia M. had testified from her prison during the first trial of the January 2015 attacks. She had answered in detail all the questions from the judges and parties concerning her husband. His contribution was considered valuable. At the end of her hearing, she even encouraged the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and journalists who were listening to her in the room to continue their work. “It’s important because it’s really what they hate, don’t give up.”she told them.

If it takes place, the trial of Sonia M. will be the first trial of its kind in France. Germany has already tried Taha Al J., a former member of the Islamic State, in Frankfurt for genocide of Yazidis and crimes against humanity. This Iraqi man was sentenced to life in prison, notably for letting a 5-year-old Yazidi girl die of thirst. His German wife received 10 years in prison.

Three other judicial inquiries in progress

The lawyer for Roza, the young Yazidi civil party in France in the “Sonia M.” case, explains that his client is eager to come to Paris to be confronted in the courtroom with the one who participated in reducing her to a slave . “My client saw her humanity denied for a year and in particular a month and a half at the home of Abdelnasser Benyoucef and Sonia M. in Raqqa. The rapes and sexual abuse that she describes are chilling. But Roza today wears a remarkable hope and wishes to rebuild herself. The trial that she hopes in France will contribute to this reconstruction. There must be a work of justice for her and for the entire Yazidi community., comments Mr Romain Ruiz who also hopes that in the long term the young woman will be able to be compensated. There is currently no guarantee fund or compensation fund in France for victims of crimes against humanity.

According to the national anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office, in addition to this “Sonia M.” file, three other judicial investigations are underway in France concerning French jihadists prosecuted for crimes against humanity. There are two other women, one of whom is also indicted, and a man.

At the end of 2016, French justice opened a so-called “structural” preliminary investigation into genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Iraq and Syria since 2012 to the detriment of ethnic and religious minorities.